36. Bella – New Discovery
Chapter thirty-six
Bella – New Discovery
Darius escorted me back from The Cliffs after the meeting. He takes a small supply of sedatives for Marcus and any others who become infected. Marcus is now in isolation and silvered with Charles taking lead.
He leaves me with a kiss and a promise to be very careful and stay in touch with him at every moment. He will return later but needs to set up the protocols with the vampires – and be assured no others are infected.
Rain taps softly against the clinic windows.
Now, I sit cross-legged on the floor beside the coffee table upstairs, surrounded by medical notes, symptom charts, and half-finished observations while Charlie sprawls beside the fireplace pretending not to watch me work.
“You know,” I murmur, rubbing tired eyes, “this was not how I pictured island medicine.”
Charlie lifts one ear. You pictured charming fishermen, sunburn and manageable rashes.
“Exactly.”
Instead we got blood curses and handsome vampires.
I exhale a short laugh despite myself. The fire crackles softly. Finn is asleep in Tom’s room, while Lena and Silas are sleeping well with little change.
Downstairs the clinic settles and creaks around us, old wood shifting beneath the storm. Somewhere deep inside the walls, pipes groan faintly.
I’ve got to figure this thing out. How am I going to treat this disease? I stare at my notes again.
Human symptoms. Vampire symptoms. Escalation rates. Shared blood exchange.
Marcus’s blackened veins still haunt me. The hunger in his eyes. The way Darius contained him and protected me. As if he had seen the edge of that madness before.
Charlie suddenly lifts his head sharply with a certain look and a slow wag of the tail.
“Oh,” I murmur immediately. “That usually means ghost.”
Accurate. Good observation, Bella.
The temperature in the room shifts. The lamp near the staircase flickers softly once, then steadies. I slowly set my notebook down.
“Dr. Mercer?” I ask quietly.
For a moment nothing happens. Then there’s movement near the hallway. A figure slowly forms near the archway. Pale at first. Blurred at the edges. Then clearer. Tall and thin, with suspenders beneath an old-fashioned physician’s coat. Kind eyes exhausted by decades of worry.
Dr. Elias Mercer looks more solid tonight than when I saw him last time. More present.
Charlie’s tail thumps softly once against the rug. The polite ghost returns.
Mercer actually glances toward Charlie. And smiles faintly.
The ghost studies me quietly for a long moment.
“You’ve seen them now,” he says softly.
“Yes,” I admit. “You mean the vampires.”
His expression darkens slightly. “And the sickness.”
I nod slowly.
“How long has this been happening?”
Dr. Mercer moves toward the old bookshelf slowly, his form flickering faintly in the firelight.
“Longer than the island admits.”
“Darius said the latest outbreak was twenty years ago.”
“Yes. I watched it.”
“And before that?”
The ghost looks toward the storm-dark windows.
“Again and again,” he says quietly. “Like tides.”
A chill moves through me. Charlie rises now, moving closer to Dr. Mercer calmly, with no fear or hesitation. Just quiet understanding.
“Why are you still here, after all this time?” I ask softly.
Mercer’s eyes shift toward me again.
“Because I failed.”
“No,” I say immediately. “You tried to help people.”
“And they still died.”
Silence. Rain lashes briefly harder against the windows. Dr. Mercer’s gaze drifts toward the clinic floor below us like he can still see every patient who ever crossed it.
“When the Hunger rises,” he says quietly, “Bloodhaven Cove changes. People become frightened. Suspicious. Angry. Humans hear things in the forest. The attacks start.”
“The thing calls to vampires?” I ask.
His eyes sharpen slightly. “This time, yes. And it calls to humans. They will hear the whispers. Hallucinations.”
I swallow hard.
“What is it exactly?”
For the first time since appearing, uncertainty crosses his face.
“I never fully understood.”
That frightens me more than certainty would have.
“I thought at first it was illness,” he continues quietly. “Then poisoning. Then environmental contamination from the caves below the cliffs.” He exhales softly. “But eventually I realized something terrible.”
“What?”
“It was something else. And it wanted to spread.”
Not a disease – an intention? Charlie presses lightly against my leg. Bad things with hunger usually want company.
Dr. Mercer’s faint smile returns briefly. “You remind me of myself, dear,” he says.
“Your journal helps me. I thank you, doctor.”
“There is another journal about this disease. It’s hidden in the room where you found that one.” Mercer nods toward the hallway. “Loose floorboard in the far corner.”
Charlie immediately trots toward the closet like this is now an organized ghost investigation. I follow with Dr. Mercer gliding silently behind me.
The room smells like dust and old paper. Moonlight filters faintly through rain-streaked windows while shadows gather thickly in the corners.
Charlie goes to the corner immediately. Humans love hiding important information under wood. Like we bury bones in dirt.
I kneel carefully and run my fingers along the floorboards until one shifts slightly beneath pressure. My pulse jumps. I pry it upward carefully.
And inside lies a leather-bound journal wrapped in old cloth. Smaller than the first one. My hands tremble slightly as I open it.
The handwriting is tighter this time. More frantic. The first visible page reads:
THE HUNGER HAS RETURNED.
Below that he wrote:
Symptoms worsening among donors.
Bruising continues and so does the webbing spread.
Patients are hallucinating and hearing whispers..
Dear God. I flip pages quickly. Sketches of blackened veins. Feeding charts. Notes about hallucinations and dreams. About hearing whispers near The Wilds.
And then, a name repeated several times.
Evelyn Lennox.
I look up sharply. “Related to Lucy Lennox in town?”
Dr. Mercer nods slowly. “She understood things I did not. She was a witch.”
“A witch?” I whisper.
My rational brain really questions this island. Vampires, some sort of monster in The Wilds, and now a witch?
“She helped you?”
“She helped contain it. Bella, I have new suspicions. Things that did not occur in the past. There are two creatures in The Wilds now.”
My breath catches. Two creatures? Mercer watches realization move across my face. We suspected this. Darius suspects it. Silas and Lena said someone or something helped them.
“I suspect…” He hesitates. “Something is interrupting the attacks. Attacking the attacker.”
Charlie’s ears lift slightly. Protective monster.
Mercer looks directly at Charlie then. And for one strange second, the ghost and my dog seem to understand each other perfectly.
“What happened to Evelyn Lennox?” I ask quietly.
Mercer’s expression softens sadly.
“She gave too much of herself trying to hold the island together.”
Oh. Oh no. That means Lucy may have inherited all of this. The knowledge. The responsibility. The fear. I glance back at the old journal again.
One final note near the bottom catches my eye.
If the Hunger rises again, find the granddaughter Lucy. She’ll know what to do.
Mercer’s gaze shifts toward the storm outside. Then the lights flicker once more. And suddenly, he’s gone. The room falls silent except for rain and my own heartbeat. Charlie leans gently against my side.
Well, he says softly. Concerning but helpful.
The doctor wants to help. And he is. I page through the journal farther and find something informative and disturbing.
HUMAN PATIENT STAGES:
Stage 1
exhaustion
pale skin and bruising
sensitivity to sound
silver irritation
Stage 2
veins webbing and darkening
emotional volatility
obsession and/or aggression
hearing whispers from the forest
sleepwalking toward The Wilds
Stage 3
loss of self
violent episodes
attacking others
blood becomes toxic
Eventually: the creature can TRACK them or it calls to them.
I sigh and then yawn. This is good information.
Charlie says suddenly, Bella you are exhausted. Go sleep. Now.
I can’t argue. He’s right. I’ve absorbed so much information and will tell Darius tomorrow. I need to use all of this information to figure our way out of this thing.
For Bloodhaven Cove.